Carnivorous

Dipping a toe in the carnivorous plant pond and it is fascinating. 

I love pitcher plants - so colorful! - so got this Nepenthes alata from a local nursery. It’s more than doubled in size in less than a month. Each of the new leaves will grow a new, (hopefully) larger pitcher.

Several big box stores and nurseries in our area have kiosks with different carnivorous plants. 

This Sarracenia ‘Scarlet Belle’ is from the same nursery as the Nepenthes.

Carnivorous plants must be popular since this was one of only 2 plants remaining from the shelves of plants just a couple of weeks earlier. 

Poor, sad Venus Fly Trap is from Home Depot. It’s perked up a lot since I got it out of the plastic ‘coffin’ and put it in the sun. Repotting with better soil is up next. Hope I can save it. Also, VFT’s are native to the bogs of North and South Carolina. Can’t wait to visit Matt & Mary again!

I’m trying to take it slow and not go overboard (who? Me??), which is made easier by there being no big carnivorous nurseries/dealers in this end of the state (that I’ve found yet…) 

Love the ribbed edges

Thank goodness for the interwebs! The bigger, better quality pitcher I ordered from a grower in NY arrived today, in surprisingly good shape after a 2-day, 3000 mile journey. 

 This was very well packaged 

This was my ‘mystery’ freebie first-time-customer gift. Isn’t it cute?? 

Already planning a bog garden in the soon to be remodeled (again) back yard…

Gardens of the World

Counting down, only one more day until Cyrus leaves. 

Today’s highlight was Gardens of the World in Thousand Oaks, 

a 4.5 acre oasis 

established in 2001 by Ed and Lynn Hogan, owners of Pleasant Holidays. 

It’s directly across a busy street from the T.O. Civic Center, 

but so secluded you forget it’s part of the city. 

The five main gardens are in the style of various countries - 

 See the mantis?!? Love this pic.

England, 

France,

 Italy,

 So many koi! 

 Japan 

and a Spanish-style California Mission courtyard. 

Very pleasant and relaxing place to spend an hour or so. 

And take lots 

 Cyrus spotted a lone Monarch

and lots of pictures.

See the bird on the tree top?

Last of the List

When Cyrus arrived almost a month ago, she had a list of ‘most wanted’ things to see and do.

We’ve worked her way through most of them - 

going to the Strawberry Festival, SB Zoo, LA Natural History Museum, SB wharf, Sea Center and a bunch of local thrift stores, plus working on crochet, embroidery, 

Cyrus’ second finished Wildflower. Hoping to make them into pillows before Saturday.

acquiring new plants and acclimating Coco Chai to her new home. (We didn’t get to weaving and spinning. Guess she’ll have to come back again!)

Today we knocked a couple more off the list - 

walking on the beach and watching the sun set over the ocean. 

Thursday we’re going to Gardens of the World in Thousand Oaks and taking one of her (beautiful!) thrifted dresses to Pop’s favorite tailor for alterations. 

Friday she’s packing (she’s going to need a second suitcase! 😜😂) and Saturday she flies home. 

This month has gone too fast!

On A Roll

Cyrus was on a roll today, finishing her first Wildflower embroidery piece and starting the second. 

She originally planned to make a quilted wallhanging using all 4 stick-and-stitch patterns but then I mentioned making a pillow(s)… we’ll see what she decides as we get closer to her goodbye date. 

Coco is helping…

I’d planned to work just a short time on Wildflower, maybe get the horizontal sashing sewn on, but we were talking and stitching and having fun so I kept going. 

I have a hard time lining up vertical sashings across edge-to-edge horizontal strips. This time I measured each section and drew corresponding lines on the long strips, then carefully pinned it together like I was matching seams. It worked! 

It might not be exactly-exact but it’s closer than I’ve ever gotten before. Hooray! (Am I the last person to figure this out? Does everyone already do this?? 😂)

This is going to be a wallhanging and at 42.5” it’s as big as it needs to be, so I’m leaving off the outer border and calling it done. Ish. Hoping to start the embroidered critters tomorrow.

Who Reads Directions??

Decided to actually read the Wildflower instructions, a day after I trimmed all 16 blocks to the wrong size. Oops! Fortunately I made them too big rather than too small, so it was an easy, but time-consuming fix.

My second favorite Stripology ruler

Also remembered I had a (much!) better square-up tool. The embroidery’s knots make the block surface uneven and yesterday’s ruler wobbled like crazy. Definitely not fun while cutting. The Stripology ruler made it much safer and easier. 

Cyrus helped me put these in order before I sewed the first round of sashing. Hoping to finish the horizontal sashing, and maybe the outer borders, tomorrow.

Speaking of Cyrus - I think she’s hooked on embroidery again. (She did a lot when she was younger.) I gave her one of the leftover stick-and-stitch patterns, then let her rummage through my two bins of embroidery stuff for thread and tools. She worked on this one most of the evening and wants us to spend tomorrow stitching together. I can definitely do that!*

* Found several partially finished stitchery projects during the rummage, so now I have more things to work on during TV time. 

Wildflowers

Got the bug to work on this again, 

so trimmed all the squares to 9.5” - some were too wonky to fit the original 10” goal. 

Planning to cut the sashing tomorrow and start putting it all together. 

Not much left over! Looking forward to seeing how the little garden critters look on the cornerstones.